


i think about it when i dream

by spibsy (lucy_and_ramona)



Category: Ylvis
Genre: M/M, Road Trips, Sibling Incest, Stonehenge - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy_and_ramona/pseuds/spibsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>bård has questions. vegard doesn't have answers, but there might be some in wales anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think about it when i dream

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for damien, because i like damien and i like writing about brothers kissing and there was a dearth of fic in this fandom that should be remedied immediately. also i did, like, the minimum research required in regards to the amount of time it takes to get from place to place, so. sorry about that!

It begins like this:

Bård is thirteen and Vegard is the coolest person he knows. Vegard is three years older and at thirteen it feels like a gap of decades instead of years. Vegard never treats him like that -- never deliberately talks down to Bård or anything, but Bård is always very aware that Vegard is his older brother. Older, smarter, better.

It begins like this:

Bård is thirteen and Vegard is sixteen and they're in the same solar system but two separate planets.

Vegard comes home from school with a sparkle in his eye, and he clambers all over Bård because they are each other's gravity.

"Have you heard of Stonehenge?" Vegard asks, rushed, the words all pushed together because he can't wait to get them out. "It's in England."

"No, I haven't." Bård squirms, not so much to get away, but because --

It begins like this:

Bård is thirteen and Vegard has no concept of personal space and Bård has a boner and Vegard has Stonehenge.

Not much changes.

Bård is twenty-three and Vegard is still the coolest person he knows. He's just also a massive nerd.

"Let's go to Wales," Vegard says. His hair is growing out, black curls always half in his eyes, and he nudges Bård's knuckles with his own where they're resting between them on the sofa. "Come to Wales with me."

In a lot of ways, Bård has had that boner for his brother for ten years. Still, he has to muster a token protest.

"Why would I go to Wales with you?" Bård asks. He swats at Vegard's fingers. "What's in Wales?"

Vegard grins at him, toothy and wide. "Answers," he suggests. "That's where it started, you know. Stonehenge."

Of course Bård knows. Stonehenge is Vegard's life, and Vegard is Bård's life, and Bård keeps all of the knowledge that Vegard gives him in a special locked box in his brain.

"And how do you expect to get to Wales from here?" Bård twists to sit with his back against the armrest, and Vegard seems to take that as an invitation, wriggling his way onto Bård's lap like no time has passed at all, like Bård is still thirteen, with limbs too long for the rest of his body and baby fat clinging to his cheeks. "It's on an island."

"We can get a boat." Vegard shrugs. "We'll take my car as far as we can and then take a boat to get to the UK. Or whatever. I don't know. We can figure it out on the way."

His eyes, when he looks at Bård, are hopeful, but more than that they're excited. He's asking, but he isn't, really. He knows that Bård has never been able to say no to him.

Bård sighs, his head dropping back. “Fine,” he groans. “We’ll go to Wales. If it’s so important to you.”

When Vegard cheers and scrambles away, the proverbial child on Christmas morning, Bård does his best to hide the smile on his face. It won’t do, after all, to portray anything other than the longsuffering little brother.

They don’t plan, of course, before they leave. That’s just not their style. Vegard just gets his keys and calls their mother, who still doesn’t understand why they chose to live together (at first it was just because it was simple for Vegard to drive Bård to university on his way to work, but Bård left uni a year ago and Vegard hasn’t kicked him out yet). She sends them her love whenever they see each other.

Vegard cheerily announces that they’re fucking off to the United Kingdom for a while and they’ll get in touch. Luckily, their mother is used to this by now. She sighs and says that she hopes they have a good trip, from what Bård can hear.

“Broke that gently,” Bård notes, watching Vegard lug a suitcase out of a cupboard and drag it into his bedroom. “Are we planning on leaving soon?”

“Sooner the better!” Vegard calls back, which is how Bård ends up slouched in the passenger’s seat of a Honda Civic, on his way to Wales at four o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

Vegard is almost bouncing in his seat, his eyes on the road but his thoughts clearly on Stonehenge. His thoughts are only ever on Stonehenge, really, or Bård himself. Bård isn’t going to pretend for the sake of humility, as he’s not that humble; he knows that Vegard cares about him and that rock formation and that’s about it. 

“Are you excited?” Vegard asks, glancing over as he flicks on his turn signal. Considering they’ve not gone far enough, even, to be out of range of the landmarks that Bård recognizes, he is actually more excited than he should be. Vegard and him, alone in a car for an unknown amount of time is… perhaps the plot of more than one dream that Bård has had.

“I’ve never been to Wales,” Bård replies, artfully dodging the question. He stretches his legs as far as they’ll go into the footwell. 

Vegard laughs, and out of the corner of his eye, Bård can see his fingers drumming on the steering column. “But are you excited?” he counters.

Bård sighs again. Vegard laughs at him, always able to call Bård’s bluff.

“Do you even know how to get to Wales?” Bård asks, suddenly concerned. He sits up in his seat. This is more important than managing the correct level of appearing uninterested in anything. “Do you have any idea where we’re going? We’re going to get lost in Denmark somewhere, aren’t we?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Vegard snorts, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Check the backseat, little brother.”

Bård does. Clutched in his hand when he settles back in his seat is a road map, one of the massive ones in a book with a bunch of other maps to other places. He looks at Vegard. Since they’re at a red light, Vegard is free to look back at him, beaming.

“We’re going to get lost in Denmark,” says Bård flatly, but he opens the map anyway.

To be fair, Vegard doesn’t get them lost in Denmark. Bård gave him too much credit. Vegard doesn’t even manage to get them out of Norway before they’re completely and utterly lost, even if Vegard remains insistent that he knows exactly where they’re going.

“You have no idea where we are!” Bård says loudly. The fantasy left long ago, when Bård realized that being alone in a car with Vegard doesn’t mean torrid illicit breaking of taboos as much as it means Vegard has complete control of the window switches and thus the ability to fart and keep Bård from getting away from the stench. 

“I know exactly where we are.” Vegard is sulking, his eyes scanning the road. “Here, we’ll pull over. You were the one with the map, so if we’re lost, it’s your fault, anyway.”

While Bård is sputtering, Vegard pulls the car over to the side of the road and then snatches the map from Bård’s hands. He hums while looking at it, tracing one finger down a line.

Bård watches, unashamed. He’s never been ashamed to admire his brother’s features, and in the harsh lighting of the street lamps, his fingers look delicately boned and smooth. Bård fancies for a moment the thought that he could catch Vegard’s fingers in his own, tangle them together and hold his hand.

But that’s all it is, thoughts and fancies, stardust and dreams. Bård has never been subtle about his feelings, but Vegard has been anything but blatant. There’s no way for Vegard to not know, by now… but Bård has spent nearly a decade wondering and he hasn’t gotten any closer to an answer.

Vegard is looking for answers, in Wales. Maybe, in some ways, Bård is, too.

“See, we’re not lost at all!” Vegard announces. He sounds triumphant when he points at one of the lines on the map. Bård assumes that he’s pointing to the road they’re on. Perhaps he should know better what to call it, if he’s going to be the person reading the map. “We just keep taking this road all the way down into Copenhagen. Once we get there, we can park the car somewhere and sleep.”

The line he’s tracing does indeed travel down to the marker designating Copenhagen on the map. 

“You should have more faith in your big brother,” Vegard boasts. “I know where we’re going. Don’t worry.”

Bård snorts through his nose, but even as he looks out the window into the green pasture next to them, he’s thinking that trusting Vegard has always been a problem of his.

The rumble of the engine is the only sound for the next mile as Bård leans his head back, arms folded across his chest.

“You can sleep now, if you want to,” ventures Vegard. When Bård glances over, his eyes are on the road, but the longer Bård looks, he notices that Vegard occasionally tosses a look to where Bård is sitting. “Don’t feel the need to keep me company.” There’s a note of a tease there that Bård has never been able to resist. 

“I don’t,” he huffs, squirming in his seat until he can rest his head against the window. It’s cold and hard against his temple, but it’s something. He’s no stranger to falling asleep in Vegard’s car.

He hadn’t thought that he was very tired, but it’s like the second he closes his eyes, sleep beckons him. And yet, as he drifts off, he can’t quite shake the feeling of Vegard’s eyes on him, checking to make sure he’s alright even now. Always the big brother.

Bård only wakes once, when there’s a thump as Vegard is climbing into the backseat.

“What?” he mumbles, his words slurred through the side of his mouth that isn’t pressed against the window. “Stopped?”

“Until the morning.” Vegard’s voice is quiet like it almost never is. Is his hand on Bård’s shoulder? “Don’t worry. Go back to sleep.”

Bård wants to say that he never worries with Vegard. He wants to say that he trusts Vegard more than he trusts himself. He wants to say that he’s really glad they’re going to Wales together.

Instead, all that he can manage to say, the words clumsy in his dry mouth, is: “Why do you like Stonehenge so much?”

He can only tell so much without the use of his eyes, but Vegard’s hand squeezes his shoulder, and, laughing, he replies, “Reminds me of you, doesn’t it? No idea how to figure it out, but pretty enough to look at.”

When Bård wakes up the next morning, he can’t figure out if it actually happened or if he was dreaming.

“Are you finally awake?” Vegard is bright-eyed, behind the wheel again. “I thought you’d never wake up. We’d get to Wales and back by the time you stopped being lazy.”

Bård rubs the remaining sleep from his eyes and checks the time on the dashboard clock. “It’s eight in the morning,” he mutters. “Shut up.”

Vegard reaches over and ruffles his already messy hair. Bård has a serious case of morning breath, and he can feel the patch on his chin where he drooled down it in his sleep, but somehow he still finds it in him to smile.

He hides it by turning away, of course. There’s no point in giving Vegard what he wants.

From there it’s hours upon hours of driving and occasional conversation that fades into nothing and then resumes an hour later. Normal.

_Did you know that they think the first stones were used as gravemarkers?_

_Oh, were they?_ Of course Bård knows. Bård has been listening to Vegard list off facts about Stonehenge since he was going through puberty.

_Yeah. Most of the stones were brought from more than twenty miles away._

_How’d they do that?_

And so on, and so on.

Amsterdam is beautiful, but Vegard is much nicer to look at, and Bård finds himself watching him more often than not. Vegard sees him doing it, of course, out of the corner of his eye or from below lowered lashes, but he sees Bård seeing him, and he says nothing.

“Would you like to stop somewhere?” Vegard offers amid one of their longer silent periods. Bård doesn’t mind the silence. He and Vegard have never really needed words to speak. “To get food, or something?”

Bård makes a noncommittal noise. They stopped off for fish and chips about two hours back, and he’s still pleasantly full. 

It’s odd, surely, that it’s been a full day since they started out and he hasn’t been sick of Vegard at all. He’s pouted, yes, and he’s picked little fights that don’t mean anything, but he’s still enjoying himself. Not that he’d expected anything different. It’s hard not to enjoy oneself with Vegard. He demands it, in a way, with his charm and laughter.

Vegard gives him a longer look than he usually does. Bård is immediately suspicious.

“Eyes on the road,” he says pointedly. “What? Something on my face?”

“No,” says Vegard, openly thoughtful. He does look back at the road, but only long enough to pull over onto the bend of the A1. Calm as anything, he unfastens his seatbelt.

“What?” Bård asks. He twists around in his own seat to look behind them, wondering if there’s a police car behind them that he missed. There isn’t.

When he twists back around, Vegard kisses him.

It only lasts long enough for Bård to realize that it’s happening. Vegard’s palm against his shoulder, Vegard’s lips dry enough that they’re rough against Bård’s, Vegard’s fingertips splayed across the back of his neck.

And then Vegard pulls back, hums, and refastens his seatbelt.

When Bård breathes out, it feels like he’s breathing out all of the air in his lungs, like he’s all out of air and he’ll never get any more.

“Why’d you do that?” he asks, for lack of anything else to ask. There’s so much he’d like to know, but this isn’t Wales, and there are no answers here.

Vegard puts the car back into drive and smiles at him. 

“Did you know that it probably took more than 1500 years to build the entirety of Stonehenge?”

Bård did know that. He’s starting to think, though, that he doesn’t know much else.

He checks the map while they’re driving toward Belgium. “I think there’s a train we can take to get to England,” he says, following the line first with his eyes, then with his fingers. “And then we pass through Wiltshire on the way to Wales.”

Vegard perks up. “That’s where Stonehenge is,” he says, like Bård doesn’t know. “We should go there first.”

“It’s on the way, anyway,” Bård says, agreeable to the idea and still a little in shock from what’s just occurred. If they’re going to Wales anyway, they might as well stop off at the very place Vegard is so obsessed with. 

They’ve been to Stonehenge before, when they were much younger. The year after Vegard’s research into The Henge had started, their parents had asked them where they’d like to go on holiday. Vegard had, of course, requested Stonehenge, and Bård had agreed.

His mother had later taken him aside and told him that he didn’t have to agree just because Vegard was his older brother, and Bård had assure her that wasn’t the reason at all.

(Truthfully, it _wasn’t_ , but Bård was fourteen, and he didn’t know yet that the feeling in the pit of his stomach was called in-love. Even if he had, he likely wouldn’t have told his mother.)

At seventeen, Vegard had been in his element at Stonehenge, reverent and wide-eyed. He’s the same now, even at twenty-six, his face filled with a similar childish glee. He’s got stubble now, and he’s worn his hair long since he turned twenty, but the look on his face is the same.

“On to Stonehenge it is,” Vegard says, cheerful. “You said there’s a train that we can take?”

“Yeah.” Bård checks the map again, tracing the line. “Once we get into France, we should look out or it.”

“France isn’t for a while, yet. Hours, I should think.” Vegard is back on the road now, and nearly bouncing in his seat as he glances to Bård and then back out the front windshield. “Anything you had in mind that’s on the way there?”

He’s probably talking about sightseeing, the zoo in Antwerp or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But Bård’s mind flashes images of telling Vegard _yes, as a matter of fact, just around the corner is a bare stretch of road where I want you to pull over again so that I can show you how I’ve always wanted to kiss you_.

“I’m having a nap,” he mumbles, instead. He doesn’t sleep, and he’s pretty sure that Vegard spends more time watching him than the road.

It is hours until they get to France, but when they do, Vegard shakes Bård awake even though they both must know he never even dozed off. 

“Just passed into France,” Vegard informs him. “How much longer until we get to the train station?”

“I don’t know. Check yourself,” Bård grumbles. He grabs the map, opening it to the folded down corner of the map he needs and finding the line again. “We need the Tunnel Sous la Manche. Where are we now?”

Vegard takes a moment to squint out the window, checking the next sign they pass. “Just took Exit 42B.”

“Well, we need to get to Terminal de Coquelles.” Bård sighs. “Not too far. Are you planning on just ditching the car at the station and coming back for it later?”

“Probably.” Vegard’s fingers drum on the steering wheel. “About before,” he says, and Bård doesn’t want to hear anything about it, because he can’t tell if that’s pity or just hesitance in Vegard’s voice.

“We can rent a car once we’re in England,” is how he cuts Vegard off, and Vegard falls silent, a rare enough occurrence. “We’ve got the money for it, and I don’t know how else we’d get there.” He cuts a look to Vegard. “We should’ve saved up. Got a plane.”

Vegard snorts. “Would’ve taken too long.” His voice is back to normal. “I’m an impatient man. This way we’ll probably get there before tomorrow’s out.”

He tries twice more to talk to Bård about The Incident, once in the train station and once while they’re actually on the train, with a little old lady asleep three feet away. Bård rebuffs him both times. He’s not sure why, but he’s positive that it’s just not right, not then. Not yet.

The car they rent is too shiny and new, and there are no traces of either of them when they climb into it. The seat isn’t pushed back enough for Bård’s long legs to fit, and the rear-view mirror isn’t set where Vegard likes it to be. It’s all wrong, but he’s with Vegard, so how much wrong can there really be?

“Where from here?” Vegard asks, rolling his head back against the headrest of his seat. He’s wearing sunglasses, so Bård can’t see his eyes. He wishes he could.

Bård has been carrying the map this entire time, and he flips it open to the right page with ease. “Go toward London,” he instructs. “Follow the signs, it should be easy enough.”

“I’d like to see you just follow the signs,” mutters Vegard, but all the same, he puts the car in reverse. They’re on the road again, a practiced routine. Bård has to wonder if they’re the same people they were when this trip began.

It’s getting late, night lowering over the outside of the car while inside, the dashboard lights illuminate Vegard’s face with an eerie glow. It’s silent, but there are a million conversations floating between them.

“Don’t interrupt me this time, you dick,” is how Vegard begins their conversation. Bård can’t say he doesn’t deserve it, but he’s tempted to interrupt all the same. “I don’t know what your problem has been all day but if you talk over me again, I’ll map you to death.”

Bård, petulantly, slouches down in his seat. He props his feet on the dashboard.

“Good boy,” says Vegard, mocking. “Little brother.”

“Taller than you,” Bård mutters, deliberately shoving the map down underneath his legs just in case Vegard wants to make good on his promise.

“You’ll always be my little brother, though,” Vegard says after a moment. Bård refuses to look at him. “No matter what.”

“Okay, okay, shut up.” Bård slouches down even more. It’s not even comfortable at this point, but he’s hoping that maybe the footwell will swallow him whole. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What if I want to talk about it?” Vegard asks. He’s much too calm and it’s annoying Bård. He doesn’t want Vegard to be calm. He wants Vegard to be _something_ , whether it’s angry or happy or confused. Calm doesn’t tell Bård anything. It just exists, like air.

“Too bad, then,” Bård returns. The toes of his shoes are touching the windshield, bending back enough that they’ve gone sort of numb. “I don’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t matter.”

Vegard shrugs. Infuriating. “I think it matters, a little.”

Typical Vegard, really. He probably has no idea what they’re even talking about. He’s just goading Bård until Bård tells him what they’re talking about. Well, he’s not falling for it this time.

“It doesn’t,” he says, his tone final. “It doesn’t matter at all.”

Vegard doesn’t say anything in reply to that. His shoulder moves, but it’s not quite a shrug, and Bård can’t make out what it means until he looks down a little farther and sees that Vegard has turned his hand over on the gearshift, palm up now, his fingers stark and pale against the black interior of the car.

Bård’s not sure what he’s doing. Is it an invitation? It can’t be, can it? He doesn’t know what else it would be, but if it’s anything but an invitation, he might just get mapped to death.

Slowly, inch by inch, he slips his hand across the space between their hands. Vegard doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move his hand away, or close it, or laugh and punch Bård’s shoulder in a joke. He just leaves it where it is, and when Bård’s palm presses down against his, he weaves their fingers together like jigsaw pieces finally in place.

Vegard's hand is warm and a little clammy beneath Bård's, and Bård imagines that he can feel the blood pumping through Vegard's veins, the thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat. He loves his big brother with such sudden ferocity that it frightens him, and just before he would have pulled his hand away in shame and self-doubt, Vegard squeezes. He doesn't look away from the road, but Bård can hear all of the things that he isn't saying, all of the things that they've never said but they both know.

The countryside fades into the distance behind them. The stars and everything between are nothing compared to what is in this car, and Bård holds his brother's hand the rest of the way to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge hasn’t changed much in the years since they’ve been here. It’s still a bunch of rocks in formation like a lopsided birthday cake of stone, and Bård still doesn’t quite get the appeal of it in the same way that Vegard does. It’s a pile of rocks. The story behind it is interesting, yes, but when you’re standing next to it, it’s a pile of rocks.

Vegard is chattering away, ducking between assorted stone monuments and poking his head out to inform Bård of some fact he's heard a million times since they were kids. He hums, noncommittal, and Vegard is off again, running his fingers over the big rocks like they're the smoothest silk. It's not that he doesn't care (well, mostly not that he doesn't care) but it's difficult to pay attention to the words coming out of Vegard's mouth when the mouth itself looks so nice. Vegard goes all flushed and bright-eyed when he's talking about The Henge, and it's distracting.

It reminds Bård of the dark in the car, Vegard’s hand in his, the anticipation as they got closer and closer to Wiltshire. Vegard's beautiful when he's excited, especially when it's about one of his two favorite things: The Henge or Bård.

The next time Vegard peers out through one of the stone archways, Bård curls a hand behind his brother's neck and kisses him, swallowing his words and keeping them hidden away in the spaces between his ribs.

“Why’d you do that?” Vegard asks, breathless, when Bård pulls back from him. He doesn’t sound upset. He sounds exhilarated, like he’s just gotten off a roller coaster. Bård thinks it’s an apt metaphor for this journey they’ve just traveled.

He smiles. 

“Did you know that Stonehenge was probably built at least 300 years before they built the pyramids in Egypt?”


End file.
